Author Archives: Whiting

Perth Zoo? Let me start at the beginning….

Well, this caravan park that we are staying at offers books to borrow. You find them in a little room with lots of free leaflets about things around Perth. Mum found me a copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but there was more leaflets than books, so I had a poke around. Then I found one leaflet about Perth Zoo. It looked almost identical to the Melbourne Zoo which I had already seen, but I wanted to go. I showed Mum the leaflet.

The next day, I woke up. Nobody was awake yet but they would be soon. I went on program for designing. The name? Adobe InDesign. Mum is a graphic designer so she knows how to use it. I know how it works too, now. Mum also knows Adobe Photoshop, a program for editing photos, but not I.

So anyway, when I got bored, I went to the playground at the caravan park. It’s not really the greatest, but in my opinion, the swings are pretty good. Also, it’s right next to an amazing pond, with a lot of little birds with multicolour beaks. Additionally there are big black swans, and some colourful ducks with their tiny striped ducklings.

After my play Dad started telling me “it is time to go to the planetarium, come on, get in the car, get a move on, chop chop”, so I walked off and slumped into my booster seat. I hate having a booster seat. It practically squashes me to death. I stared out the window. There’s nothing else you can do when you’re trapped in a car. Gus was already in, but not my parents. When they got in, we started moving. I kept staring out the window. Then we stopped. But this wasn’t the planetarium. I was pretty sure this was the zoo.

When I asked Mum, she said something about the planetarium being too crowded. So then we got in, and Mum asked about where I got the map. The leaflet had a map of the zoo on it. It had been left in the car when I first saw it, and I had brought it out with me. When this was explained, Mum told me that the zoo people were selling maps for $1. Seems that I saved us $1.

The Perth Zoo was a lot like the Melbourne one, if not smaller. Halfway through looking at the animals, Mum announced that we were to do a project on an animal. Gus did his on the Black-and-White Ruffed Lemur. I did mine on the Sunbear. This is the finished project. I did it with InDesign.

Yesterday I went to a Bird Breeding Centre named Rainbow Jungle. It mainly had  little finch-type birds and colourful lorikeets.

Purple-crowned Lorikeet: little finch-type bird

Superb Parrot: colourful lorikeet

We had seen it in a magazine but we weren’t planning to go until we saw it on a bike ride. We couldn’t have known it was there except there was a tower with a sign on it: Parrot Breeding Centre. We planned to go.

When we got there, I noticed a bin covered in stickers. They all read the same thing; Rainbow Jungle. The gift shop was choc-a-block with anything to do with birds. At the counter, there were even real macaw tail feathers! I knew they would be from the place’s birds. Dad asked the lady  how much it was for a family pass. It was $40. Well, at least that’s what the lady said. It seemed dad didn’t have his wallet, so mum paid instead. The fist bird: a corella. Judging by the sign, his name was Cocky and he could do a lot of tricks, but all he was ready to do was say, “Hello Cocky”. He was supposed be able to sing “ladededa”, so I sang that, but he started dancing, which was very amusing.When he got tired, we moved on.

The birds were wonderful. They came in every colour you could imagine. There were ponds with goldfish in them and features such as a stone man spitting into a pool, a trickling waterfall and lilies and lilypads. When we reached the tower, we climbed up. There were a pair of coin binoculars, but mum and dad never let us do that sort of thing. Then I saw a couple of $1 coins! I put one through the slot. Dad lifted me up so I could use them for a bit, but said I was too heavy. He used them instead, watching these boring surfers.

We went on. It was extremely interesting. Eventually we came back to Cocky, who was having a nap, and ate lunch. Then, as we had nothing else to do, we went through the gift shop and back home.

At Exmouth, the Whitings and the Simmonds went on a Whale Shark tour called Three Islands.

It was amazing.

Look!

Whale shark.

me

Wow. A school of fish.

Whale sharks are sharks, making them fish (like the Whitings!), but they don’t eat us. They consume little plankton and crill.

We also went to a aquarium. It was very interesting.

Toadfish. Poisonous.

Clarks Clownfish. Dad mistook it for a Red Sea Clownfish!

Pretty.

It’s a turtle!

There were a lot of sharks, but you couldn’t have really got a photo because they lived in a man made lagoon and any photo of them would only show its fin.

Happy Birthday, Matt!

I wake up. Hang on a second, it’s dad’s BIRTHDAY! It’s still way too early. I lie back until my fellow pals Wil Simmonds, Minny Simmonds, and Ari Simmonds are outside, eating Weetbix for brekkie. I can’t see Dad though. I expect he’s having a surf. I wish I could possibly consume Weetbix. Once, just once. I’ve had a few ‘breakfasts’.

When I was very young, I had delicious toast. A bit of apple and a piece of toast was all I had early in the morning.

Once I went to a relative’s house to stay for a bit. Mum gave me a different breakfast while we were there, and I figured that was because we were on holidays. It was a lot of fruit, a couple of veggies and some nuts.

When we got back home, we had the same. And the same and the same. Soon my brekkie had changed.

I started to have porridge, but it was really plain yuck. So I went back to fruit.

My fellow pals and I are fooling around when I spot Dad. “Happy Birthday!” After that I start hanging out again. The rest of the day is relaxed and uneventful, but before sunset, mum comes out of the caravan with some Popcorn Slice the kids made earlier. It’s a good recipe where you melt marshmallows and stick popcorn together with the marshmallow mixture. It’s totally yum.

After that we walk to a pub. I choose a enormous seafood pizza, and that’s nice as well. I go to bed full of gourmet pizza and happy, although because it’s so wet we end up taking a taxi back.

A lizard. Dad found it at Karijini when we were visiting…..

HERE!

(And here!)

We see these weird flying crickets a lot.

We’ve dressed a termite mound before, look!

This is an actual dinosaur footprint, believe it or not.

I am a crocodile named George. I am REAL, and Scotia and Fergus have seen me before. They once stayed at the caravan park I visit regularly.

Fun in Broome

There are camels in the backround, look!

An awesome tree house I made.

I’ve been having a lot of fun, haven’t I?

28/5/15

Who: My family and I

Where: Tunnel Creek

Why: For schooling

How: By driving

The drive took a long time, and when we got there, (after walking a bit as well), mum & dad put on these strange shoes rather like socks, except they were made of the same material as they use for wetties. Mum told me they were made for walking on rocky surfaces. After 15 minutes of squeezing feet into these interesting sock/shoes, we climbed into a cave. Gus and I were wearing crocs, but I still did my best to stay out of the water. Soon I went as far as I could without getting wet, and then I was stuck. The water in front of me looked deep, the rocks beside me were like walls, and Fergus was behind me. Dad promised me the water in front was ankle-length, but it looked up to my waist, and I wasn’t wearing any swimsuit. Suddenly, dad went straight in the place I didn’t wish to go. I then plucked up just enough courage to go in. I stepped. It somehow didn’t seem that deep anymore. It seemed shallow. I waded in. Dark. Caves are dark, right? This creek is in a cave, which explains its name. At least we had torches. There were oodles of small brown frogs, small insects, and stalagmites like giant chandeliers,  we saw a yabby, and there are supposed to be bats as well.

Thumbs up!